Classical Music

[Hasty Ent]

Hello hector!

here's a site with info: http://www.rdpl.red-deer.ab.ca/villa/life.html

Bachianas Brasileiras is his best known piece, and my personal favorite. I have this recording: Kiri Te Kanawa - Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne, Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras.

It's absolutely haunting...stunningly beautiful.

[Alqualaure]

Ooooooh, I love Aranjuez...

Hasty Ent, do you have the John Williams version? Stunning Spanish guitar.... ah, I think I need to go listen to that now!

[hectorberlioz]

Souds good. I'm excited

[hectorberlioz]

Well
I cant go to atlanta, but Maybe Nashvillle...

[Hasty Ent]

Originally posted by Alqualaure
Ooooooh, I love Aranjuez...

Hasty Ent, do you have the John Williams version? Stunning Spanish guitar.... ah, I think I need to go listen to that now!

nope... Erato disc, Turibio Santos and Oscar Caceres, Orchestre National de l'Opera de Monte-Carlo, Claudio Scimone...

'fraid I'm NOT a John Williams fan, but I'm thinking of the movie soundtrack composer... are you thinking of someone else?

[Alqualaure]

No - not that John Williams! LOL This one is a guitarist.

Check it out... http://www.iclassics.com/homepage.js...?entityId=8519

[Hasty Ent]

Originally posted by Alqualaure
No - not that John Williams! LOL This one is a guitarist.

Check it out... http://www.iclassics.com/homepage.js...?entityId=8519

LMAO.... what a relief!
thanks for the link... I've copied the info.

though it's hard for anyone to top Segovia, imho... don't you agree?

[hectorberlioz]

I like the film composer John Williams equally well as the guitarist
Itzhak Perlman is playing in Nashville sometime in the future.

[hectorberlioz]

Does anybody have a favorite conductor?

[Elfhelm]

Originally posted by Hasty Ent
LMAO.... what a relief!
thanks for the link... I've copied the info.

though it's hard for anyone to top Segovia, imho... don't you agree?

I'd like to weigh in on this. To my knowledge, Williams, Bream, and Parkening were all students of Segovia. It was certainly Segovia who brought stature back to the classical guitar, but each of these three added to the stature of the instrument since coming into their own.

Y'know, I can almost agree about Segovia being un-toppable, but there have been some really great stereophonic recordings, and direct-to-disc, and now digital recordings that some people would rather have. And when you think of such awesome duos as Presti / Lagoya or the Romero Guitar Quartet. These are things Segovia only dreamed of when he began to transcribe Baroque lute music or reading through those old Spanish guitar composers.

Bream, in particular, I find so warm and tender that I often prefer his performances over Segovia's. Parkening has these unbelievable hands and he re-fingered some chords so they sound better in the twisted positions only he can make. I never bought any John Williams. I guess in comparison with all these others he seemed more like a technician to me. I do like Bonita Boyd, though. I think it may be her gender, too. It seems to me she is very sensitive.

But it is true that, when I listen the same piece played by several different performers, Segovia will almost always excell in ways that younger players can only hope to match, never exceed.

[Elfhelm]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
Does anybody have a favorite conductor?

I'll take Abbado.

Here's his bio, from EMI:

Claudio Abbado was born in Milan in 1933. He studied the piano at the Milan Conservatory with his father Michelangelo Abbado, and went on to study conducting with Swarowsky at the Vienna Academy of Music. He won the 1958 Koussevitsky Competition, establishing him in Italy, and then won the 1963 Mitropoulos Prize, after which he rapidly became known internationally as an orchestral and opera conductor.

Abbado first conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in 1966, and an important artistic relationship began which resulted in the orchestra electing him their Principal Conductor and their fifth Artistic Advisor in 1989. Under Abbado, in each season contemporary music takes its place alongside the classical and romantic repertoire, and each season also features a cycle of concerts dedicated to a particular theme: music inspired by the poetry of Holderlin; the legend of Faust; works centred around Greek drama, and so on.

Claudio Abbado made his debut at La Scala in his native Milan in 1960 and served as music director there from 1968 to 1986, conducting not only the traditional Italian repertoire but also presenting a contemporary opera each year, as well as a concert series devoted to the works of Alban Berg and Modest Mussorgsky. While at La Scala, Abbado also founded the Orchestra della Scala, for the performance of orchestral repertoire in concert.

In 1965 he appeared for the first time with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert at the Salzburg Festival, and made his Viennese debut two years later in the orchestra's subscription concert series. Claudio Abbado served as Music Director of the Vienna State Opera from 1986 to 1991, where he enriched the repertoire with premiere productions of Mussorgsky's original Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Schubert's Fierrabras and Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims. In 1987 he was named General Music Director of the City of Vienna, and in 1988 he founded the music festival Wien Modern, which has since expanded to include all aspects of contemporary art. This interdisciplinary festival takes place each year under Abbado's direction.

As founder and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra (1978) and the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchestra (1986), Abbado has also shown deep commitment to the development of young musicians, an interest which extends to his role as Artistic Advisor to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. In 1992, together with cellist Natalia Gutman, he created Berliner Begegnungen (Encounters in Berlin), an annual gathering during the Berlin Festival in which experienced professional musicians join together to rehearse and perform with talented young instrumentalists in concerts of classical and contemporary chamber music.

Abbado also strives to encourage and support young composers. At his initiative, an annual international composers competition has taken place each year in Vienna, and since 1994 prizes for composition for the figurative arts and for literature are awarded by the Salzburg Easter Festival, of which Abbado became Artistic Director in 1994.

Among the numerous awards and honours Claudio Abbado has received are the Evening Standard Opera Award for his Boris Godunov at Covent Garden; the Legion d'Honneur from the French Ministry of Culture; the Gran Croce, the highest honour of Italy, and the highest civilian honour of Germany, the Bundesverdienstkreuz (1992). The Vienna Philharmonic awarded him their Ring of Honour in 1973, and the Golden Nicolai Medal in 1980. In 1985 he was awarded the Gold Medal by the International Gustav Mahler Society, presented in recognition of his service to the music of Gustav Mahler. He is an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and has received honorary degrees from the universities of Cambridge, Aberdeen and Ferrara. In 1994 Claudio Abbado was awarded the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, Germany's most prestigious music award.

[hectorberlioz]

I like Abaddo too.
But Sir Colin Davis tops em all for me
I also like
Sir Georg Solti
and
Vladimir Ashkenazy

Do you have the Abbado version of Verdi's requiem? its awsome.

[hectorberlioz]

I'm a lover of many kinds of music, but opera is my special passion... Puccini, especially, but also Verdi, Wagner, Dvorak, Mascagni, etc... I adore La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, Aida, Rigoletto, Cavalleria rusticana, Rusalka - I could go on and on, but I'll spare you - LOL!

This is from page 3. by Alq
Alq, I thought Dvorak didnt write operas.

[Elfhelm]

Burly Oats, no I would like to get that Verdi. I have two very different performances. A recording of one live in Italy with some lesser known opera people in the 50's and a beat up old set of disks I found in the used record bins, but I haven't looked at it closely. Maybe tonight, maybe I'll play it with Corelli in mind. Abbado's would probably become the definitive performance for me. (You'll always see me put the words "for me" after the word "definitive", for the record.)

I participated in a performance that was on PBS last month honoring the musicians at Terezin. I was the third man in from the left on the top row. I want to find a DVD of it.

There's a picture of the stage at this site:
Defiant Requiem

[b.banner]

has any one here ever heard of the film composer hans zimmer?

[hectorberlioz]

Burly Oats

Lol, is that a distorted nickname for me?

If any of you noticed I am now the Master of Orchestration

[Alqualaure]

Burly Oats! ROFL!!!! Took me a minute to catch on to that one...

Hector, Dvorak wrote Rusalka, which is a favourite of mine - the only of his operas that I'm familiar with. However I just did a little research & found this list of his operas:

Alfred (unpubd.) (1870); King and Charcoal Burner (Král a uhliø) (1871, totally re-composed 1874, rev. 1887), Op.14; The Stubborn Lovers (Tvrdé palice) (1874), Op.17; Vanda (1875, rev. 1879, 1883) Op.25; The Peasant a Rogue (Å*elma sedlák) (1877), Op.35; Dimitrij (1881-2, revs. 1883, 1885, 1894-5), Op.64; The Jacobin (1887-8, rev. 1897), Op.84; Kate and the Devil (Èert a Káèa) (1898-9), Op.112; Rusalka (1900), Op.114; Armida (1902-3), Op.115.

[Alqualaure]

b.banner - I love Hans Zimmer - in fact, I was just listening to the Gladiator soundtrack in the car - awesome movie, fabulous score!

[hectorberlioz]

Burly Oats! ROFL!!!! Took me a minute to catch on to that one...

Yeah, me too. Lol

Hector, Dvorak wrote Rusalka, which is a favourite of mine - the only of his operas that I'm familiar with. However I just did a little research & found this list of his operas:

Aha!

b.banner - I love Hans Zimmer - in fact, I was just listening to the Gladiator soundtrack in the car - awesome movie, fabulous score!

Oh yeah, gotta love Hans Zimmer's music

[Elfhelm]

I just read about all that Czech opera stuff, following up on Alqualaure's post. A visit to the library is in order and for anyone else thinking about it, the link is that Dvorak was a string player in the opera orchestra Smetana developed along Czech nationalism lines. So I am thinking of the Bartered Bride and Rusalka first, then see what else there is to investigate. Thanks, Alqualaure!